


sit still, look pretty

by clairelutra (exosolarmoon), sharpshooting



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: (i'm so sorry i still have no fucking clue how to write lotor), (ruxi if you're seeing this please forgive me), Alternate Universe, Childhood Friends, F/M, Out of Character, altea lives!au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-24
Updated: 2018-03-24
Packaged: 2019-04-07 14:33:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14083026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/exosolarmoon/pseuds/clairelutra, https://archiveofourown.org/users/sharpshooting/pseuds/sharpshooting
Summary: Two childhood friends getting in trouble for old time's sake.Of course, between these two particular old friends, it's a bit less "sneaking out with the beer" and a bit more "road trip to the space Bermuda triangle."





	sit still, look pretty

**Author's Note:**

> kkkkind of tempted to rework this with better characterization and turn it into its Own Thing but it's like.... #5 on my list so eh

“May I ask the lady to dance?”

To say that Allura was happy to see her old friend was a vast understatement. “Yes, yes you may.”

The ballroom was quiet, not a demure giggle or secretive whisper above the socially accepted decibel, glowing in ice blue and dying-star red and glittering with more jewelry than you could poke a stick at, and Allura was _dying_. A ball once a quintant for a scleeb was _too many_ _balls_.

But it was her mother’s birthday scleeb, so everyone was wearing pink as they took suitably restrained turns around the floor, no matter how desperate Allura was to escape. 

Lotor’s palm was soft in hers, the fine coating of fur immaculately kept. He picked an empty spot on the floor and turned her very carefully into his arms, but Allura had known him for a _very_ long time, and there was a kind of frenetic energy in the calm, deliberate motions that had the hairs raising on the back of her neck in anticipation.

Lotor was an adventure unto himself, and all she had to do was wait for her cue.

“How are you fairing these days?” Lotor questioned idly as he placed his hand high on her hip. _Ah, the requisite small talk._ “I hear you’ve started as an apprentice under your father.”

“Why, yes,” she said, smiling vapidly in kind while watching the corners of his eyes for the ball-drop. “It’s been fascinating to learn all the ins and outs of Altean alchemy. I remember you yourself had an interest. Have you spoken to your mother about an apprenticeship?”

A flicker of irritation crossed his face. “She will not have me.”

“Oh,” Allura said, and tried not to wince overmuch—it was unbecoming to show undue emotion during the yearly mourning period for the queen. “I am… so sorry.”

Lotor’s tongue clicked, just barely audible over the sorrowful dirge. “It was to be expected,” he said, dismissive, and turned her about the floor. “She never had much fondness for… _teaching_.”

“Mm,” Allura agreed, knowing full-well what he’d been going to say instead.

Honerva’s parenting left much to be desired.

“At _any_ rate,” he went on, “I am happy to speak with you like this, Allura.” He smiled, eyes still sharp, too clever by half. “It has been too long.”

“Has it?”

“Yes, it has.”

She tilted her head and narrowed her eyes.

The corner of his mouth gave a very quick, very suppressed _twitch,_ and that told her everything she needed to know.

Now, she _could_ tell him that the blue lion wasn’t taking him anywhere he couldn’t get on his own, that whatever he had in mind wasn’t worth the talking-to she’d get from Coran or the disappointment she’d get from her father, that really, she’d grown out of such tomfoolery long ago, shouldn’t he as well?

But.

A ball every quintant for a _scleeb_.

There was a groonling’s chance in space that Allura was going to turn him down.

“If this ends with us in a brothel in the outer rim again, I’m telling Lord Zarkon,” she warned, helpless against the way his eyes lit up at the concession.

“Nothing so crass,” he assured her, and tapped the breastpiece of her bodice with a datapad between two turns. “Look.”

Allura looked, and felt the blood drain from her head.

 _“That’s_ —”

“Oriande,” Lotor cut her off, that wicked smile finally allowed to form on his mouth. He leaned in close to whisper in her ear. “Come, princess. Haven’t you ever wanted to see it?”

 _Had_ she?

“That’s insane,” Allura hissed, her heartbeat thrumming in her mouth and adrenaline humming in her veins. “This is insane, _you_ are insane!”

Lotor, damn him, just grinned like the crook he was and tugged the datapad from her tingling fingers. 

“Does that mean,” he said, slowly, deliberately, _goadingly_ , “that you do not want to go?”

Allura didn’t even have to think about it. 

“I hope you’ve packed; we leave in a doobosh.”

Lotor looked like she’d just handed everything he wanted on a gold-dipped platter, and she couldn’t even bring herself to hate him for it.


End file.
